


Speed Dating

by Briana_Dubs



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pepper was prepared for that though, Tony somehow makes it into speed dating even though it shouldn't be, and so does tony, but we love him, just normal humans, loki is a little shit, no powers au, or as normal as they can be i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 23:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17755247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briana_Dubs/pseuds/Briana_Dubs
Summary: “All right, Tony, I’ve set up about fifty people for you today, okay?” Pepper was helping straighten out Tony’s tie, ignoring how he kept yanking it back loose and just fixing it again right after. “Please, please try to give at least one of them a chance? Please? Tony, please. All I’m asking is that you try.” He groaned as she pushed the tie back into place. “That’s all Rhodey and I want. Just for you to try. We just want to see you happy, and we’re sick of you bringing random one night stands home all the time. You need stability.”





	Speed Dating

“All right, Tony, I’ve set up about fifty people for you today, okay?” Pepper Potts was helping straighten out Tony Stark’s tie, ignoring how he kept yanking it back loose and just fixing it again right after. “Please, please try to give at least one of them a chance? Please?”

Tony huffed, yanking on the tie again. “Look, Pep, I appreciate the gesture, I really do. But unless you’ve found someone who can keep up with me, I’m not dating.”

“Tony,” Pepper warned, sounding tired of him already.

“I mean it,” he said, “I don’t care how pretty they are. If I ask them a simple question and they can’t answer it, they’re gone.”

Pepper swatted his hands away from the tie again. “Tony, please. All I’m asking is that you try.” He groaned as she pushed the tie back into place. “That’s all Rhodey and I want. Just for you to try. We just want to see you happy, and we’re sick of you bringing random one night stands home all the time. You need stability.”

“That’s what I have you two for.”

Pepper hummed and made a face at him. “ _Besides us_ ,” she insisted.

Tony threw his hands to the side. “Come on, Pep! I’m fine! Dating is just gonna slow me down! I don’t wanna do this!”

 

* * *

 

A few hours later Tony found himself sitting at a little table in a restaurant Pepper had recommended, trying to ignore the fact that there was a line of fifty people waiting in another part of the restaurant. Each one hopeful for the chance to date him. Half of them were probably just hoping to get rich or get famous from this. The thought made him want to die.

When the first girl came to sit across from him, she introduced herself and offered him a cute smile. Tony rolled his eyes. “All right, let’s cut to the chase,” he said, leaning across the flat tabletop. “How much do you know about nuclear radiation?”

The girl sputtered in response for a moment before saying, “Uhh, I know it’s why they had to evacuate that one city in Russia.”

Tony gagged. “Not even in Russia. Next!” And he ushered her away from the table, not caring that she was upset and starting to cry. He simply sat himself back down and waited for the next candidate.

“What is your opinion on the use of solar power?”

“How does one quantify the speed at which liquid travels through a pipe?”

“Can you name the thirty-fifth president of the United States?”

“Is there any possible future you can envision for our planet where we continue the use of fossil fuels?”

“Did Tesla or did Tesla not invent a death ray?”

This was the way each of his meetings went. A question to test their intelligence and response time almost always followed by Tony shouting out, “Next!” at the top of his lungs. It was probably supposed to be humiliating for him, it was definitely aggravating for Pepper, and it was mortifying for all these young men and women trying to win his heart.

He was pretty sure they had gone through everyone when a tall, pale man with long black hair sat across from him at the table and opened up the menu that had been sitting forgotten on the top. Tony was a little startled by him and did a quick mental count. No, yeah, they definitely had gone through fifty people already. Who was this clown?

The man didn’t look up at him as he flipped through the menu and asked, “So, are you interviewing people for jobs? That what all the ‘next’ nonsense was about?”

When Tony didn’t answer at first, the man flicked his gaze up to him. Bright green eyes, Tony noted.

“Dates, actually,” he answered.

Now the man lowered the menu. “Really? That’s how you speed date? You ask them some stupid, pointless nerd question and if they don’t answer right you kick them to the curb?”

Tony smirked. “Listen, buddy, I really couldn’t care any less what you think of me. My friends have been trying to get me to settle down for a while and I’m not settling for someone who can’t keep up.”

“God, you sound like a colossal asshole.”

“Oh, I am,” Tony admitted with a grin and a quick sip of his partly flat champagne. “But that’s something the person I may end up dating should know right away, don’t you think? If they can’t handle me then it’s best not drag them along on the back of the truck.”

The man across from him set his menu down again now. He squinted those bright green eyes at him and looked him over for a minute. “You’re Tony Stark?”

“The one and only,” he replied, taking another drink. Now the man leaned back a bit in his seat, smiling kind of funny.

Motioning with his head to where all the others had left, the man asked, “How many of them do you think were just hoping to hook up with you and break up so they could get money?”

“Probably half, if not more,” Tony answered easily. “I’m kind of used to that. Thus the whole trial by question thing.”

The man closed his eyes, nodding and still smiling weird, before looking back at Tony. “I guess that makes sense,” he said. Tony noted how smooth his voice was. If he had to guess, this guy grew up in a family in the spotlight with adults who taught him how to present himself for the camera. It was something Tony had noticed in himself during college and had furiously worked to unlearn. He had sounded like his father and he never ever wanted that.

“You get pretty wary when you’re rich,” Tony said after a moment of quiet. “And famous.”

“And humble,” the man teased, grinning at him. Humming, he picked up the other glass of champagne on the table and took a sip. “You know, I always pictured you’d be a dick, but in completely different ways.”

“Yeah? How so?”

Rolling the drink around, watching it spin, he said, “I imagined you’d be vain. Only interested in the beautiful people. I’d imagined you would have paparazzi around you every chance you could because you loved the attention. And I had imagined you would flaunt your excessive wealth every chance you got.”

As he took a sip of the drink again, Tony asked, “And what kind of dick am I instead?”

“Smarter than everybody in the room, cocky, and cynical,” he answered. “You actually remind me of myself.” When Tony quirked a brow up at that, the man shrugged. “Or, well, that’s how my family describes me, anyhow.”

“Some family you got there.”

“They just tell it like it is,” he said, a bitter smile on his face. “Well, they tell most things, at least.”

“You are one weird fucker,” Tony said with a laugh. “Can I offer you something to eat?”

The green eyes he had sparkled at the question. Visibly. Like, Tony physically saw them shine. “I hope you know I’m ordering the most expensive things on the menu,” he said.

Tony laughed. “Oh, god, no, trust me the steak with the gold leaf is disgusting.”

“Oh, I never said I was going to _eat it_ ,” the man said, leaning forward now and picking the menu back up with a cheeky grin. “I just think I owe it to all those others to make you pay too much for mediocre food.”

“God, I really like you,” Tony sighed then, resting his elbow on the table and leaning his head into his hand.

“You going to ask me my opinions on dark matter?” The man asked, sounding smug. “Or maybe my opinions on the feud going on over Vantablack? Ooh, or perhaps you’d prefer asking me the impact media has on the youth?”

Tony couldn’t hold back the dreamy sigh that came out of his mouth. He quickly called the waiter over to their table. “Whatever he orders, he can have. I don’t care how expensive,” he said, smiling up at the poor flustered server.

After he ordered about four of the most expensive entrées, the man downed the last of the drink. Tony watched him with that same smile on his face. “You know, you still haven’t told me your name.”

“About thirty two of those you had your speed dates with didn’t get to give you their names, either,” he said in reply, “What makes you think you deserve to know mine?”

“Fuck, you are so hot,” Tony groaned, shifting in his seat, feeling a little more than hot and bothered.

The man winked at him then and stood up. “Enjoy the rest of your day, Mister Stark.” And with that, he walked away.

Pepper rushed over to him as soon as he was gone. “Tony? Tony, what the hell was that about? Who was he?”

Laughing, Tony shook his head. “No idea, but he just left me with a bill for four entrées and a boner that could break bricks.”

“Oh my God, Tony, what the hell,” Pepper huffed, putting a hand to her face. She hit his shoulder then. “I don’t wanna hear shit like that!”

Tony just beamed up at her. “I think I’m in love, Pep.”

Now Pepper staggered backwards with several blinks of her wide eyes. Hand resting on her chest, she squawked, “ _Really!?_ ”

 

* * *

 

It took about three days before Pepper had found the mystery man who stole Tony’s heart. Loki Odinson knew who he was messing with when he confronted Tony Stark, but hoo boy he had never seen the likes of Pepper Potts. If he thought he could get away, he was sorely mistaken. When Pepper Potts is on a mission, you had better either help her or get the hell out of the way.

She practically dragged him by the ear into Tony’s workshop four days later and all but threw him at the billionaire with an order of “Date him. Now.”

Trying to argue was to fight a losing battle.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know... 
> 
> people on tumblr are yelling at me about Aladdin and will smith....... I think i'm still high off that. ………… That and maybe the dog show last night.... a dachshund won for best in the hound group!!!! I love dachshunds!!!!


End file.
